


this is sweeter than blood

by lvlybite



Series: the sky we rule over [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blasphemy, Catholic Imagery, Deities, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu, Minor Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8, Mythology - Freeform, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 16:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21358885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lvlybite/pseuds/lvlybite
Summary: “aren’t you tired?” soonyoung asks as they lounge in the sun and it’s before the world collapsed onto itself. jihoon shouldn’t know what he’s talking about, but he helped so many love poems to be made that there is no fooling himself.either way, he still asks.“tired of what?”or: the healing of lee jihoon, deity and extraordinary sufferer
Relationships: Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Lee Jihoon | Woozi
Series: the sky we rule over [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1507577
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	this is sweeter than blood

**Author's Note:**

> and we are back with another rlly short story about salvation... and i really like this one.   
hope you have fun reading this and, again, this is dedicated to kaori (the little shit that they are got me into caratland, after all).

_ Darkness, it will rise in perfect light; _

_ I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. _

**Sarah Williams, Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse**

**[...]**

jihoon has always been envious of soonyoung.

it's something he can't control and has always been there, in the darkest depths of his soul — if he ever had one to begin with. the all-consuming feeling of wanting to turn himself into the light that soonyoung shines into their lives, escape through his fingers into the warm contentment of happiness shared in such a way that his suffering can finally be laid to rest.

soonyoung is beautiful. so much that his craft, the making of stars that litter the skies between nightfall and dawn, is just a speck of dust compared to the fluid movement of cradling a million hearts. and, true to their natures, jihoon is like the artist he holds close to his heart, chasing the night like the myth of Icarus. his wings so close to melting, but he can't escape the trance of true beauty; of freedom.

because jihoon's only free when soonyoung's around.

that's why it is so hard to be around him. jihoon doesn't know what to do with freedom.

it has been stripped from him since the beginning of time. the worries and woes of living beings turned into the first piece of art ever created; blood as the starting paint for something that would grow into the solace of war.

for him, freedom is a frugal feeling that will be taken, something that every human desire but has made themselves shackled to costumes and people. it means nothing if it ain't made of chains woven from devotion; only brings happiness when given up out of your own heart purest wish.

and the truth is, his devotion for soonyoung, he knows, is the only thing certain in his cursed existence.

**[...]**

the last time jihoon had been in a house was when a boy who was dear to him wanted to paint something but couldn't come up with anything. the deity kissed the scars that lithered his shoulders, humans bearing too much for their own sanity, and left eyes in the darkness for him to see.

the next day, he pushed himself from a bridge so the boy could paint fallen angels. a painting for every single razor blade he had ever hid.

there were enough for a lifetime.

**[...]**

time isn't linear when you create something. so, sometimes, jihoon can't remember what day is it or in what year they are. Sometimes, he forgets minghao ever brought them back home and starts the pain again.

he never knows how, but soonyoung always finds him in blood stained sheets. he suspects the stars tell him about nails and tooth; about nightmares and prayers and words that only jihoon can hear.

jihoon is the most human out of them and, if you ask him, soonyoung would be the most heavenly, but when he drapes his arms over his form with a smile; scarlet soaked white satin and agony tuning into a piece of paper inside a cup of water... there is a feeling of something even older than them lurking inside dark eyes, even more human is the birth of existence.

there is something strangely natural about the stars giving testimony to suffering. maybe the sins that jihoon tried to swallow turned themselves into miracles by the seer will of humanity alone, wanting to believe in a merciful god that won't ever take his face.

that's one of the reasons

the starmaker caters the pieces inside the sleeves of his hanbok, the blood turns into light and goes up and up and up. the sky eats everything like a starving mouth, the horizon the only line between being swallowed and being whole — he thinks it looks like the inviting embrace of a long lost lover.

jihoon isn’t kneeling, he can feel the softness of the bedsheets on his back and the arms that circle him, keeping his thrashing traitorous body in place as he calms down, but jihoon feels like the world turns and spins until it’s remade into a temple for him to grovel on his savior’s feet. a smiling statue of some god that has long forgotten the human world, maybe the creatures that held blood outside of their body; bathed in sacred rituals of sacrifice and death so the world could spin around and more would fall from it.

and soonyoung always smiles with bloody teeth.

or, at least, that’s what jihoon sees.

**[...]**

wandering soul lost into the world, following his own path of destruction.

jihoon used to cross paths with jeonghan a lot. the damage of war left too many artists behind, hanging from ceilings too low for death to come swiftly. when the muse couldn’t suffer for the artists, jihoon used to sit on the floor kicking his feet and singing until the pale form would hunch over a body too tired to breath, too heavy to move.

in those times, art isn’t a pretty or a strong thing. these were the moments were jihoon was the worse for wear: dark bruises and even darker blood. jeonghan would look at him with that mock of his old kind eyes that made his heart painful aware of how much it missed his brothers, of how much he hurt them. it was as much of a breeze of fresh air as it was torture, searing pain through his ribcage as jeonghan cradled another soul; as he held their mortality in his arms until it was finally nothing.

the end and creation were alike.

they both would disappear in their suffering after.

**[...]**

some days are better, even when there is no reason for it. sometimes, jihoon wakes up to tangled white sheets and the sun on his face. mingyu will be at the door, smiling as he looks at his little act of mischief, and jihoon will throw a pillow at him. they will laugh and go get breakfast with the others as mingyu smiles and tells him about something cute that wonwoo did.

the others will be already at the table with fruits and bread, lots of color and laughter that jihoon swears are the best thing in the world. soonyoung will have saved a spot for him, with just enough space they won’t bump arms every time they try to get something. jeonghan will bicker with seungcheol, hansol will be sleeping still as he munches on something and uses someone’s — most likely seungkwan’s or chan’s — shoulder as a pillow, joshua and seokmin will smile as friendly teasing goes along, chan and seungkwan will play fight a little — with care, so hansol’s not completely awoken — and both mingyu and wonwoo and minghao and jun will be a little lost at each other, coming back to them every time something more happens.

for every ironic thought on religion that jihoon musters to explain the sadness that eats away at the edges, these moments are the closest to heaven he has been.

and, as the hours pass, they all will dissipate and jihoon will create. sometimes, the others will sit with him and help. their sadness and troubles poured into music and shoulders losing stiffness in a way that only jihoon could do. seungcheol says that, as much as jihoon can be chaos inside, he is also the order that makes them work. other times, he will sit alone with their warmth bathing his skin and woven meaning into words.

soonyoung always dances to what he creates.

he will spin with stars around his fingers and dark eyes that sparkle in the right light, his feet will slide with ease and confidence around darkness that should be reserved for the night only, he will make anything into a spectacle. and jihoon will be able to think about how beautiful soonyoung is without resorting to his downfall, to images that he isn’t really seeing, but are the making of his mind rotting away.

they will dance together a little, hand in hand and heart in heart.

soonyoung never kissed him, but jihoon will wish he did every single time he looks at his lips, every single time they get a little too close, every time his heart beats. maybe there isn’t a single moment in which he doesn’t want to kiss soonyoung.

they smile and there is no blood in sight.

**[...]**

“aren’t you tired?” soonyoung asks as they lounge in the sun and it’s before the world collapsed onto itself. jihoon shouldn’t know what he’s talking about, but he helped so many love poems to be made that there is no fooling himself.

either way, he still asks.

“tired of what?”

“of running away.” his voice is soft, but knowing. as much of a jokester as he is, nothing goes unnoticed by those cat-like eyes that jihoon adores so much. “aren’t you scared that someday this will fade too?”

jihoon looks at his serious face and breaths. pain that isn’t his weights down on his shoulders like he turned into atlas. he doesn’t want to be taxed with the responsibility of holding the world, doesn’t think he did enough bad things for that. but the world has been given to him since humans were born, since the world first came to exist.

he learned with joshua a long time ago that the truth is the goodest and most painful thing that can be said, so jihoon, that can only create pain, hopes that the good part can go to soonyoung, if only he is the sole bearer of the thorn crown.

“i know it won’t fade. you would never let it happen.”

this is not a proper answer and soonyoung’s lips thin into a line but he won’t say anything more. jihoon appreciates the love he can feel still, it won’t even budge from the atmosphere and that is the only comfort he may ever need.

not long after, jihoon will run even from that. for some time, but not forever.

and in the future he will be right, soonyoung will never let it go.

**[...]**

healing goes a little like this: hansol’s words and seungcheol’s presence and jeonghan’s care and seungkwan kindness and joshua’s understanding and seokmin’s laugh and jun’s forgiviness and minghao’s first steps and mingyu’s voice and wonwoo’s silence and chan’s teasing and soonyoung’s patience. it sings the song of their love, goes along with the pace of their lives.

he knows of nightmares well enough that he also heals, he knows of the burden well enough that now he shares. he knows of endings well enough to know that this ain’t one. 

the reds start to get a little more washed up; a little more pink, like soonyoung’s lips covering his the first time he held good days for more than a week. pink like the only thing he could see with his hands shaking and his heart racing and soonyoung, deity turned lover turned everything, smiling and crying and oh,  _ that _ was what was missing all this time. 

and healing doesn’t mean not feeling anything anymore, it means learning how to feel the good things that were there all the time.

jihoon thinks soonyoung will always be the best of them all. 


End file.
